Welcome back to my blog after a while away, lockdown has been an extremely tough time for me mentally and physically. I was struggling at times to motivate myself to do the sport I love which was quite alarming for me. I also had physical set backs with a fractured elbow at the start of June after a mountain bike crash. I’m all back to normal now and thankfully it hasn’t affected my form or training but it gave me my motivation back after the tough times I had.
As lockdown eased in the UK, TT started to be talked about as the only way we would get racing back to start with. So I focused on my time trialling ability to get the most out of the races I did. The first TT I did, was a TT run by VCL so I decided to support the club by riding in my VCL kit just for the TT. I had a solid TT but was hoping to be faster.
My next target was the Hamstreet 10 supported by Medway Velo. I was off at an early number so I managed to finish before a heavy shower hit the course. I was satisfied with my time having taken a minute off of my previous PB. However, I was beaten by a great ride from my trainSharp JDT teammate Harry Ives as he beat the junior course record.
I wanted more from my TT’s. I messaged Jon Sharples (trainSharp founder) and Alex Welburn (my coach at trainSharp) about how I could go faster and they both said my position was holding me back from going faster. So I went over to trainSharp‘s center of excellence and with the help of Connor Murphy (Sports scientist at trainSharp) we used the technology trainSharp have to optimise my position on my TT bike
Thanks the trainSharp’s aero fit, I went to Wigmore‘s last TT of the season on their Iwade course to test myself against a new course and a new position. I had a new PB power average and I came away with the overall fastest time of the night and the junior course record.
After the pleasing result at Iwade, my next target was the Sussex CA 10 at Plaistow. It wasn’t a fast course as it was pretty technical, but I had a good ride with strong numbers but along with positives there was room for improvements.
My latest TT was last Saturday at the Utag RT 10 on the A3. A very strong field of 180 rides came to the race. I had a strong TT, taking 1st junior and equaling the junior course record. Once again very good numbers for myself and a minute faster than my PB.
Overall, Lockdown has taught me alot and helped me understand how much we as athletes need competition to keep us focused. Thanks to trainSharp and especially Jon, Alex and even more importantly my parents for helping me get through the rough moments and get me back on track for where I want and need to be.
This weekend I will be doing my first 25 mile TT in over 4 years so hopefully I’ll have some positive words to write about that and I have a few more TT’s in the plan so we will see how I perform.
Hopefully this will be the last time we go into a lockdown but with the current state of affairs I’m not holding out much hope but I hope to see you all in my next blog.
Cheers and stay safe
Lance
Lance Childs 